The moment you've all been waiting for! It took a while to try to iron out the next bit because I kept getting new ideas to add in before the next Varia member was introduced.

I find it oddly easy to write in the perspective of five years olds as I can easily empathize with them. I wonder what that says about my own mentality.

Point of view switches constantly between Tsuna and Xanxus here.

Chapter 6: The Neighbor is Greeted by His Stupidly Weird Neighbor

Tsuna's determination quickly faded once he realized that he was missing something very important.

A gift! Kings got gifts from visiting people all the time right? Tsuna ignored the fact that this was not exactly the same situation as the ones in his fairy tales.

Then he remembered the candy store across the street and the small coin pouch in the front pocket of his overalls. Nana had given him just enough money to buy a small snack from one of the park's vending machines if he got hungry. (Never mind the fact that he was too short to actually reach the buttons or feed the money into the slot.)

Tsuna could go without a snack for a bit. While being a little hungry was uncomfortable, it was something that he had been getting used to lately. This was more important than being hungry though.

This was a matter of giving a gift to the King! He didn't want to be rude and Tsuna was positive that no one had managed to make the King feel welcomed yet.

Tsuna set his face in the most serious expression he could muster, pleading with his eyes for the King to 'Please wait for me', before he about-faced and headed for the candy store.

For a full forty-three seconds, the puny piece of trash had dared to continue making eye contact with him. Not that Xanxus was actually counting, (of course he wasn't, really) but that was a whole lot longer than most people had managed to do, especially in the last year or so. He could count those on one hand.

In those forty-three seconds though, the little scum had somehow managed to express an entire spectrum of emotions from shock to awe to joy to despair to panic to inspiration to one of the most determined expressions he had ever had the misfortune to witness.

Then the brat turned around and made a beeline for the store across from him. For a moment, Xanxus thought that he had been running away, but the last face the brat made stuck in his mind. Not once had the little boy shown any sign of fear…

Damn it. He must be losing his touch if even baby trash weren't properly afraid of him anymore. Or maybe the brat was just incredibly stupid…

Xanxus continued to watch as the boy made frantic hand movements to the old woman by the register who seemed to either be almost blind with the way she was squinting at him or was giving him the evil eye.

She slowly made her way from the counter and was guiding the brunet around, pointing out different sweets which the boy seemed to contemplate or outright reject and by God could she move any slower? At this rate, it would be nightfall before they were done. Not that he had anything to do but…

Every now and then, the old lady would eye him suspiciously even as she kept up her sweet smiling face in front of her customer. A year, hell a few months, ago, the teen would have hurled something, most likely sharp, heavy or hard or a combination of all three, at anyone who dared to look at him like that. Now, all he felt like doing was drift along, never letting his emotions stew too long lest he get angry and lose everything again. He'd rather die than feel that way, but there was no way he was going to do the cowardly thing and kill himself. He wasn't going to die. Not before he-

"Thank you very much!"

The brat's loud cheerful voice derailed his mental train, effectively yanking him from the dark path his thoughts were heading down, and consequently away from the wrath that threatened to bubble out again.

Finally! The brat had picked something, but Xanxus, lost in his thoughts, had missed exactly what it was.

The old woman was patting him on the mass of hair atop his tiny adora-(Xanxus shot that word mid-thought with a mental manifestation of his guns) head with a grandmotherly look which snapped back to the squinty beady eyed one like a rubber band as soon as the brat's back was turned. He valiantly resisted the urge to sneer back at the archaic piece of trash and instead chose to focus his attention on the brat before him who was clutching a small purple tube in his hand.

Then the brat bowed down in front of him and presented before him the tube with both tiny hands.

"Welcome to Namimori…your Majesty."

'The fuck?'

The candy store in here is one of those antique wooden ones where there is a single entrance way but no actual door. You can look in and see the entirety at a glance because it's that small.

Tsuna. What exactly are you telling that old woman about Xanxus?

On a side note, Tsuna is currently wearing his Monster Tamer outfit.